Administrators for the companies behind The Cube development have been paid almost £1 million since being appointed.

Progress reports published by PwC, administrator of Build Ability (BA) and Birmingham Development Company (BDC), show £955,000 has been drawn by the firm, while a total bill of more than £2.5 million has been racked up.

PwC was appointed as administrator of the companies, which were both run by well-known city entrepreneur Alan Chatham, in March 2010 when they collapsed after failing to reach a financing agreement with Lloyds Banking Group.

Joint administrator and PwC partner Matthew Hammond said administrators had added value to the project.

He said: “When we took on the administration, the risks were high, contractors needed to be restored and building work kept on track.

“The administrators’ handling of the project has added significant value by helping to bring the building to completion and creating an asset that people now live and work in.”

An administrator’s report for BDC shows a total cost of £1.48 million, at a rate of £377.13 per hour, of which £430,000 has been drawn, while the bill for BA stands at £1.07 million, at an hourly rate of £276.10 and £525,000 has been drawn thus far.

It is not clear whether the entire £2.5 million will be paid to PwC.

Administrators oversaw a deal which saw The Cube sold to limited liability project called Aruna Project, which is entirely owned by BDC and BA, for £80 million last year.

Practical completion of The Cube was achieved in August 2010 and to date, leases for about half of the office space have been completed, and agreements have been reached for the hotel, roof-top restaurant and other retail space.

There are 242 residential apartments in the development, 130 of which were sold prior to the administrators being appointed.

PwC said to date, the sale of 94 of the apartments had been completed

The documents show that BDC is expected to make a distribution to its unsecured creditors – but the amount remains uncertain.

The Post reported in September that Cube owners had won a legal battle with an investor who bought an apartment but then refused to complete after it lost value in the economic downturn.

Noel Hand was one of 26 investors out of a total of 130 who bought apartments off-plan at The Cube in 2006 and who have refused to pay for the units they signed for once the development was completed last year.

The investors had claimed the value of the apartments had fallen so significantly since they signed contracts in 2006 that they were no longer able to secure the finance for the properties and believed that the developers were liable as the building was completed later than expected.